To be benefited from the programme, equal-minded organisations form a partnership and come to a conclusion which will lead to a loose agreement within the group and the programme. More than 4300 participants have already benefited through more than 500 partners worldwide within this exchange programme.

Like most of the developing countries, partner countries have been plagued with challenges to provide access to modern energy services for social transformation in terms of technological, social, economic and environmental development. With increasing gasoline prices, expensive transmission and distribution cost and escalating energy deficiency, rural electrification has been farfetched dream to the nations. In other hand, with advancement (decreasing Capex and increasing efficiency) in renewable energy technologies, growing concern over climate change and increasing acceptance for low carbon development trajectories have been provided renewed emphasis on improving access to modern energy services using RETs. This will not only lead us to electrify rural houses but also help to thrive small and micro enterprises by giving must needed pill and would put us in a different niche.

Statistics shows that more than 60 per cent of the villages in the region are fulfilling their energy needs from traditional sources of energy resources such as fuel wood, agricultural residue, cattle dung etc. Realisation of biomass potential shall help the region to make a smooth transition from the present inefficient biomass use in traditional sectors to a competitive and efficient biomass energy use in the future. Biomass gasification, a century old technology, has become a modern and sophisticated technology. Gasification is a thermo-chemical process in which the biomass is first gasified in a cylindrical container called reactor into a mixture of organic gases - consisting of carbon monoxide, hydrogen, methane and some inert gases - and this gas in turn produces power in a gas engine.

Theoretically, all biomass with moisture content between 5-30 per cent can be used for the gasification process. However, all the biomass supplied does not give equal quality/quantity of gas. All gasifiers have their own requirement of biomass size, moisture content and ash content. Inappropriate preparation of biomass has caused several units to shut down. So setting up of any power plant based on biomass gasification with informal arrangements with local players individually for fuel intake, transportation, storage processing and other related activities might not assure smooth supply of biomass at a stable price, as a result affecting the smooth operation of the power plant. So, apart from confirming effective supply chain of biomass, a thorough study should be conducted to see the opportunity of using local agro-residue, wild invasive species and opportunity to use local barren/fallow land for fuel forestry.

Apart from confirming the technical issues, the techno-social and techno-commercial issues remain greater headache for its sustainability of the rural electrification. As continuous generation of electricity need regular supply of biomass which is getting expensive, regular income from the electricity is a must. Experience has shown that village electrification only for lighting within a low tariff can’t assure sustainability of the power plant. It should either be charged at premium rate, which is again a risky business, or there should be some other commercial use which can pay more.

TARA and its sister organisation-Development Alternatives (DA) have a long experience of working on rural electrification through biomass gasification. The various methods used for technology adoption in the community and several options of ownership model and commercial utilisation of power in the villages have been tested. The most widely used models are village energy group (VEC) model, common interest group (CIG) model and commercial model but the selection of these models might differ from one place to another. The long experience of TARA on rural electrification based on gasification is highly useful to other partner countries. My 10 months, yes almost, stay in TARA has been an impressive stay and great learning. I am quite confident that the knowledge gained within TARA during my posting period will help me and my organisation to conduct similar projects. q